


ever I roam

by gazing



Category: The End Of The Fucking World (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Communication, Conversations, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kissing, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazing/pseuds/gazing
Summary: After Alyssa’s confession, they drive. They talk. They love.
Relationships: Alyssa/James (The End of the Fucking World)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	ever I roam

It’s almost happiness.

The seatbelt around his chest, the sunset in the rearview, his hands resting on the steering wheel - James feels something close to it, can almost feel joy on the edges of his scarred fingertips. Of course he can’t quite be _happy,_ not after everything, but with this drive home he’s getting there. Even with memories or blood and bone and _pain,_ above all, swirling around in his head, he’s getting there.

Alyssa sits beside him and of course her face is unreadable. There is this way she has of shutting off her features, her mouth a thin line and her eyes stubbornly blazing. It’s one of the reasons James fell in love with her - that sharpness to her face. It’s irritated him beyond belief, and he still loves it.

How lovely, to have lost so much, but to still be able to _love_ the girl sitting beside him, her hair tucked behind her ears. Love her an impossible amount, against every odd, every weapon raised against them. They haven’t lost each other - and won’t, James think, ever again. It’s a promise to himself. And to Alyssa.

He taps his fingers on the steering well, humming a song he doesn’t know. Feels like he’s floating, his once crippled leg suddenly weightless.

“What are you so happy about?” Alyssa asks, in her usual drawl.

“Nothing.” James gives her a quick smile, alternating between giddiness and relief.

“Right.”

“I, uh,” James pauses, “I met your husband.”

“ _Ex_ husband.” Alyssa says, staring resolutely out of the window. “We’re getting divorced.”

James knows this already. He just wanted to hear it out loud - and as soon as he does, a grin breaks out on his face, bright as the setting sun. She had said it, she had told him, _I feel the same._ It hasn’t sunk in yet. But it’s James, now, who will kiss her. Isn’t it?

“Oh?” James glances at her. “Right, well. Good.”

“Don’t look so smug about it.” She says, under her breath. He loves her.

“Smug? I don’t look smug.” He does. Alyssa probably can read the happiness in his face without even look at him. She knows him well, too well, almost better than himself. She knew James was human before he did.

“Whatever.”

It’s muttered against the window. But Alyssa’s hand twitches on her lap, as if about to reach for him. A memory flashes in the front window. Alyssa trying to kiss him while driving. James wonders if she can see it, too.

“So, uh,” James’ glances at her again. He can’t seem to help himself. He keeps thinking she might have disappeared, and he’ll be left sitting alone in this crappy old car, talking to himself. “Where to now?”

“Home.” Alyssa said. Arms crossed, untouchable. But real.

“Are you- are you sure?”

Alyssa nods.

“We’ve been running away, James.” She says firmly, and she’s always been wiser than him. Always known what’s right before he could grasp it himself.

“I should get a job.” James says suddenly.

“Yeah, you should.” Alyssa gives him an amused smile. When she teases you, James thinks, it should sting, but instead it gives you this feeling that you’re the only two people in the world. “Like, seriously.”

“Yeah.” James laughs, “Yeah.”

There has so much been said, but James feels they haven’t even scratched the surface yet. What exactly do you say, when your catharsis is here? When everything you wished for, dreamed of, is slowly coming into fruition? If only it weren’t plagued by grief, James thinks. But then, if it weren’t, would he be who he is now?

James likes this person he’s grown into. Kinder than he ever thought he could be. Living and breathing. _Feeling._

For most of his life he felt nothing at all.

“You really weren’t going to do it?” James asks. He’ll never forget that dread. He had been so sure that Alyssa would be-

“James.” Alyssa says, “I already told you.”

“Yeah, but-“

“Sometimes,” Alyssa says, “Sometimes people just get really fucking sad, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

James considers this, looking out into the sunset.

“After my Mom died,” He starts, “I felt- nothing. That’s how I got my scar. Put my hand in a fryer. I wanted to feel something. Anything.”

Alyssa winces.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” James’ eyes flicker to his scar. “It wasn’t the... only time. Became a habit, I guess. A bad one.”

“Oh.” Alyssa frowns.

“I thought that I-“ James swallows. His voice cracks. He is so, so grateful that he is not the person he thought he was - that his morbid fantasies never came to life. In some ways, it reminds him of Bonnie. A fantasy to cope with loss. “That I was-“

Then there’s is a soft hand on his knee. Clumsy, awkward, in the way only the two of them can be.

“‘S okay.” Alyssa says. More sincere and gentle than James is used to. “You’re not.”

_God, I love you._

“Don’t say it.” Alyssa grumbles, taking her hand away.

“What!” James laughs. Perhaps she could read his mind. He entertains the possibility as he takes a turn, wheels on gravel.

“You were going to say _it.”_

“What’s _it_ , Alyssa?” James turns to her quickly, with this huge smile that she scowls at. This is his life now. Filled with moments like this. He doesn’t have to worry about bodies or prison or- or anything. He wants nothing like that to happen again, to anyone, and especially not to them. They’ve suffered enough.

“You know.”

“What?” James might push her too far. He’s really too happy to care. It’s so much better to have these arguments, these moments of intimacy hidden under Alyssa’s frown.”I’m going to say it.”

“Don’t you dare-“

“I love you-“

Alyssa giggles and jumps out of her chair, pressing a hand over his mouth to shut him up. James feels caught in the happiness, as if a net thrown over him, holding him beneath it.

“Shut the fuck up.” She says, giggling uncontrollably, and James shrugs and keeps driving. On and on.

Alyssa falls back into her chair. She rests her feet on the headboard, leaning back, so much like the girl he met at school but yet so different from her that it makes him swallow. Sometimes it’s hard to separate who they were from who they are now. It all feels just the same, but it’s not.

“I don’t care that we can’t have sex.” Alyssa says suddenly.

James blinks.

“Uh.” He turns pink. He hates thinking of this - feels like a part of him has been taken away. “Good?”

“I mean, like.” Alyssa shrugs. “We can still kiss and stuff. I just wanna be with you. It’s overrated anyway.”

James’ chest glows. He had been worrying about it.

“Piss off.”

“What did I do this time?” James laughs. The long silences are diminishing, piece by piece, as they learn to side beside each other again. Like a jigsaw slotting back into place. Broken pieces finding their places again.

“You’ve got that stupid smile on your face.”

“I’m just happy.” James gives her this look, as if she’s all of the stars in the sky. Alyssa rolls her eyes, but he can see it, that pleased little smile. She’s always been softer than she looks.

There have been a million moments between them. This one may be his favourite. It has promise.

James can’t fight his disappointment when he pulls up in front of her home. Alyssa pulls off her seatbelt, biting the inside of her cheek. Hopefully it will not be a goodbye like the last, James thinks.

“We’re here.” He says, unnecessarily.

“No shit.”

James gives her a crooked smile. Alyssa gazes at him, and he wonders, as always, what she’s thinking. Pretty hair in the moonlight, falling over her shoulders. Eyes wise and old and sad. He wants to reach out and trace the lines of her face, he’s still unsure of their new boundaries. How they fit together.

Alyssa says, uncertain, “Do you want to stay here tonight?”

James pauses.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He admits. “I think I have to- work out my life, on my own. I’ll go to a hotel, or something.”

Alyssa smiles. Sometimes, she tries not to, but she can’t help herself. Those are his favourite of her smiles.

“Good idea.” She says. She turns to the door and looks back, just once, ethereal under the starlight. “Night, James.”

“Goodnight.” James says. Goodnights are different from goodbyes. James knows which one he prefers. He almost reaches for Alyssa’s pale arm as she leaves the car, but thinks better of it. He will set boundaries, that respect hers, even if all he wants to do is crawl into her skin.

Alyssa takes one step. And another. She doesn’t look back. James watches her walk in the dark and feels a tinge of anxiety. He does not want her to be hurt - he does not want anything to happens to Alyssa, ever again. He threw himself in front of a bullet once. It hurt like hell, and it still does. He’d do it again and again and again-

Funny, James thinks, how feelings had once been distant, like the sky. Now they’re everywhere. He’s full of them. _Love._

Alyssa turns around and runs back to the car. She knocks on the window. He rolls it down all of the way, uncertain, and she leans there.

“Alyssa?”

“Come here.” She says firmly.

James shuffles closer, onto her seat. Alyssa looks at him.

Then she leans over and kisses him.

When they were young and inexperienced their kisses were clumsy. Warm, closed mouth, fleeting as butterflies - but they were real then, too, and James remembers them still. When they had kissed in the motel it had been.... like coming home, but so terrifying, and a revelation. She had been everything, under that low light. His entire world.

Now, she kisses with that same clumsy enthusiasm, though a little more refined from age. James’ hands flutter up to cup her face, and the way she’s leaning means her hair falls right over his face, tickles his cheeks. He doesn’t mind it. He can’t feel anything except her mouth, and the fact Alyssa is _there_ , and not going anywhere.

She pulls away to say something and James pulls her down and kisses her again, because he wants to, because he can, because she makes a noise of surprise and her hands touch his hair. And he feels- he feels-

“Stop.” Alyssa giggles. Pushes him away.

James pulls a sad face, and she rolls her eyes. She has his whole world in her hands as she steps backwards from the car, and sticks out her tongue.

“We need to do it properly.” Alyssa decides. There’s a little of that youthful shyness in her voice. It sounds like stubbornness, and love. “You can take me on a date. With flowers, and stuff.”

“You want flowers?”

Alyssa shrugs. James didn’t even think she liked them. Maybe it’s the principle of it. He’ll get them anyway. He’ll buy her a whole fucking garden.

“And slowly.” She says.

James nods. He understands. Though he feels less willing to stick to it when Alyssa’s eyes flicker to his mouth again.

“ _Any_ way.” She drawls. Tucks her hair behind her ears. Sometimes she looks so- so small. But then, sometimes James does too. They lean on each other. “Good _night,_ James. For real this time.”

James nods again. Watches her turn away, just so he can watch her turn back when he says,

“Alyssa.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

Again and again and again. He never wants to stop saying it.

Alyssa scowls. (She’s pleased).

“I _know._ Stop it already.”

(I love you too.)

“Okay, okay.” James’ grin widens. “I give up.”

(I love you more.)

“Night.” He goes to roll up the window, but she stops him with a smile.

“James.”

“What?”

Alyssa steps towards him, and beckons him with her finger. James tilts his head up towards her.

“I love you too.” She whispers. A secret just for him. Then she turns and runs away, through the trees, as if she never really did exist.

James sits back against her chair. Runs a hand through his hair. Tries to stop smiling.

“I love you too,” He says, over and over. “I love you too.”

Funny, he thinks. Years ago he thought he didn’t know love. Now the whole world is ahead of him, and it’s full of it. _Love._

James begins to drive. There is so much life left.

**Author's Note:**

> just finished this show and I AM COMPLETELY IN LOVE I loved the ending n cried cos it was so perfect n cathartic and they’re gonna be finally happy together . Couldn’t hold my feelings in so I wrote this!! hope u enjoyed


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